You have surely spotted one [of] their commercials. They spend millions airing them. They normally feature a celebrity, like Trace Adkins, or Dean Norris. The message is always the same: Help our wounded “warriors”. In my time we called ourselves “soldiers.” Now, when we need to cosmeticize our ugly wars, and the public infantilization via television allows for such whorish grandiloquence, the old GIs have become “warriors.”So, I can't help wondering, who are they as in "their commercials"? Usually an author employs a meaningless abstraction such as "the powers that be". While Murray exposes the exploitation of veterans and today's soldiers to serve the ulterior motives of others, unfortunately his focus on the main target is a bit blurred by mentioning all sorts of "evil-doers" such as the "billionaires", "naked American corporate power", "oligarchic power", "American elites bent on world domination", etc.
These campaigns, besides the questionable use of the funds collected (the CEO, Steven Nardizzi makes $375,000 a year), are devious instruments to propagandize imperial wars (a variant of the “support our troops” shopworn, dishonest appeal).
What needs to be done in the future is for people such as Murray to narrow their focus on the capitalist ruling class so that it becomes more distinguishable. If we fail to identify the source of this problem and many others, we will continue to elude effective methods of solving them. By identifying the source of this exploitation of veterans and soldiers clearly as the capitalist ruling class, then it is only a short distance away from identifying the system of capitalism as the main source of the problem. Then revolution becomes the solution, and methods of organizing such a feat become an effective response to this and of many other associated problems such as imperialist policies, poverty for the many and riches for a tiny few, militarization of police, racism, 24/7 surveillance of citizens, climate destabilization, etc.
